‘The Americans’: Last minute decisions

Penultimate episode! Who doesn’t love a penultimate episode? Who doesn’t love using the word penultimate? Let’s jump in and see if Washington D.C. has an unfortunate exposure to glanders.

While Henry teaches Philip how to play video games, Paige and Elizabeth barge in rattled from the night’s events. Elizabeth details the mugging but tells Henry that they merely screamed and ran. Later, when they talk privately, Paige asks “Is he dead? … Did you have to… do that?”

“Yeah, I did.”

Cue the music! You do not want to get between a Mama bear and her baby! You messed with the wrong woman, street thugs!

Philip informs Paige and Elizabeth that he needs to go out and meet someone for work. Really, when you think about it, how is Henry not the least bit suspicious of his parents going out at all hours for travel emergencies? He must have figured it years ago and doesn’t care. Elizabeth tells Paige that her and her dad were trained to defend themselves. Paige is most disturbed by how calm her mom was during the attack. She tells Paige that she’s done that before to protect herself but can’t exactly recall how many times. I contend it’s a red flag if you can’t remember how many times you’ve used deadly force to protect yourself.

Agent Aderholt stops by the mail robot repair company. The son of the woman who died still works there. He’s not surprised that she died there that night. After all, she was 87 years-old and had some health concerns. There was never any autopsy performed nor a follow-on investigation. Sometimes old people die, I guess. A satisfied Aderholt walks away.

William and Philip meet on a park bench that same night. William describes how the Lassa fever works: “You basically dissolve from the inside then squirt yourself out your anus in liquid form. First in a whoosh, then in a trickle.” This guy must be a blast at dinner parties!

Oh, and that level 4 strain you want, Philip? It’s even more fun. William says he can’t give this one to Phillip. He simply can’t give one of the deadliest pathogens on the planet to the Centre. He can’t imagine being responsible for putting that out into the world. William gives Philip permission to tell Gabriel the truth even though it may mean the end of his spy career.

A happy Tatiana tells Oleg that her work here in Washington has been very productive and she’s being reassigned to Nairobi. In fact, she will be the Rezident there. A woman Rezident! Can you believe it? She also hints to Oleg she can choose her own deputy. Interested in Kenya, Oleg? He says he will think about it.

After Paige goes to bed, Elizabeth tells Philip about how Paige shared the intel from Matthew regarding Martha. Is Paige more ready than we think? If she can just get past the fact that her mom is a stone cold killing machine, there’s a chance! Elizabeth tells Paige that she grew up in Smolensk. It was a war-ravaged city. Elizabeth was only two when the War ended which puts her at 40 years-old in 1983. We missed her 40th birthday party? She says it was terrible growing up. Everyone was fighting for food and freezing all the time. It was basically like this:

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Agent Aderholt has a technician dig deep into the guts of the mail robot looking for anything suspicious. The technician finds a kit with wires coming out of it tucked inside. Without saying a word, Aderholt writes a message to him that says to put it back together. Later, Aderholt and Stan meet with their new boss to figure out what to do. They still think someone will come switch it out even though Martha is gone. Their heads must be swirling because they have no idea what’s real anymore.

Oleg goes over some (stolen) drawings of the Centaur-G, a special installation in the Space Shuttle payload bay. Even though I worked on the Space Shuttle Program for 8 years, I was not aware of this fun piece of space history! The Centaur-G would be used to propel special satellites beyond Earth orbit, including the Galileo mission to Jupiter. Unfortunately, its first mission was set a mere months after the Challenger disaster. NASA decided that the Centaur-G would be too risky of a mission and canceled it altogether. Regular solid rockets would later propel Galileo to Jupiter but in a much less efficient manner and requiring gravitation assists from several planets.

Aderholt and another agent have a mail robot stakeout which seems like the most ridiculous thing ever. However, they do see someone poking around the mail robot after approximately five minutes of waiting. They immediately arrest her. The other agents ask Stan if this woman knew who she was working for. Stan says she met a guy at a Roy Rogers in Franconia. He hinted he was a member of the mob and was about to sting one of their gambling operations. They offered her $500 a week to change out the recorder. She will still make the drop so they can find out who she’s working for. It’s a great plan!

Side note: I had never heard of Roy Rogers the restaurant! Sure, I’ve heard of Roy Rogers the actor and Roy Rogers the drink. But I haven’t spent a lot of time in the northeast so I had never heard of this place! The creators of the show likened it to a Jack-in-the-Box, which is definitely a thing here in Texas. Now, many a reader will swear by their regional chain of choice. For every Roy Rogers, there’s a Carl’s Jr. or a Whataburger or a White Castle or In-N-Out (back when it was cool and not everywhere). However you should know that they are all pretenders. Culver’s is the best. Butterburgers!

Gabriel calls Martha’s parents to tell them that she’s fine. They are taking good care of her and she wants them to know that she loves them and thinks about them all the time. They will try to call again if it’s possible. At least they know she’s alive but that’s the bare minimum right now. It almost feels like there’s more uncertainty in there lives now.

When Matthew comes by the Jennings’ house to help Henry hook up a video game system, Paige asks him if he ever worries about Stan’s job being dangerous. Matthew doesn’t see his dad’s job that way. Chasing spies all over is a lot of waiting and doing paperwork. When he was undercover with the KKK in St. Louis, now THAT was dangerous. Perspective, Paige!

Wait a minute! I thought Oleg and Stan were never going to see each other again. Surprise, comrades! You see, Oleg needs to vent a little bit. He says his people are all extraordinarily smart; he went to the Soviet MIT and is a sharp guy, too. However, the Soviets don’t have the money to fund their smart people. Oleg has serious concerns that his country is doing dangerous work and will take unnecessary risks to catch up to the United States. He offers one piece of information to Stan and then says they are done for good. Oleg knows there is a place where the US military makes biological weapons. Then, they send that work somewhere else and the Russians have a man on the inside at that somewhere else. That’s all Oleg knows. Stan doesn’t say a word and Oleg leaves. Is Oleg a traitor or is he taking the moral high road? Could Oleg prevent a biological attack by sharing this information with the FBI? Stan immediately goes to his FBI boss and tells him this singular piece of information from Oleg. They now know the Russians have an agent in place working on high security biological weapons.

Philip picks up William and brings him to Gabriel to talk about his second thoughts on delivering the Lassa virus. William doesn’t know if he can believe in something so horrible. Gabriel thinks it may be time to go home to his people and start a life there. He just has to do this one final mission. Sigh. Nobody ever gets out after the last big score. That’s not how television and movies work. Go ahead and ask Dominic Loretto, Danny Ocean, or Ethan Hunt how many times they thought they were done and how many times they’ve been on one last mission.

Get ready for the finale, William. (Facebook.com/TheAmericans)

It’s all hands on deck at the FBI as they comb through the employee lists for the labs in the area doing research on biological substances. They immediately eliminate the accountants. They wouldn’t have access to anything important, right? Numbers aren’t dangerous! Agent Aderholt gets a call from the Louisville field office. They found a William Crandall who died in 1932 at the age of 5. That would make William 56 years-old if he were alive today. Is this the perfect match? We know Directorate S likes to impersonate dead children. William has already been under surveillance but now it’s time for round-the-clock surveillance. I feel a strange feeling wash over me as I find myself rooting for the FBI to get William. What kind of person have I become?

Matthew tells Paige that Stan hasn’t been home for a few days. He wanted Matthew to stay a few nights a week but he’s been largely absent since that proclamation. They start joking with each other about Matthew’s ex-girlfriend named Celery (the entire family was named after produce) and then all of a sudden, kissing. Paige heads home with a smile on her face. Philip and Elizabeth talk to Paige about her relationship with Matthew and make their intentions perfectly clear. They tell her to be careful about who she opens up to but under no circumstances should she be doing anything because of them. She can be friends with Matthew but don’t be friends with Matthew for them. Paige is confused because they keep telling her to be super friends with Tim and Alice.

When Philip receives a mysterious call masquerading as a travel ticket mishap, Paige demands to know what is going on. I mean, Elizabeth killed a guy right in front of her. She may as well know everything that’s going on now. What other secrets could their possibly be? “Do you trust me?” They explain that they need to go retrieve part of a weapon from a man they work with so that they give it to their government to use if they’re ever attacked.

“Great.”

Great… great… great… (Facebook.com/TheAmericans)

Holly Taylor reportedly did twenty readings of that single word of dialogue to get it just right. Go ahead and say the word “great” twenty different ways and see how they all sound it your head. Now say it twenty more times and try to convey that you feel conflicted about who you really are as a person and what it means when someone says “our country” or “our government.” Then you’ll have an understanding of what Holly Taylor did with just one syllable.

I certainly haven’t praised this show enough this year but that’s what happens when you have two young kids driving you up the wall all day and sometimes night. Much of the subtlety in The Americans whips past you if you’re not paying attention. Philip and Elizabeth, possessing a common parental trait, know when Paige is lying. They know something is going on with her and Matthew but they’re not going to force the issue yet. They’ll set the ground rules and hope Paige makes good decisions. Much of the strength of these family scenes relies on the performance of Holly Taylor as Paige. Her glances from one parent to the other and the perfect amount of silence between lines take the scenes to the next level.

All right, it’s almost time for the finale. Let me know what you think will happen! I can’t wait!

Final Thoughts:

Oleg calls his mother in Moscow. She mistakes his voice for his dead brother, Yevgeny. Oleg remarks that he sometimes thinks he sees Yevgeny walking around America, too. They both miss him dearly.

William’s in trouble isn’t he?

Come to think of it, Philip is in trouble, too, right?

The Americans airs Wednesday nights on FX from 9:00 pm until whenever the say they’re done. Adjust your DVRs as necessary. The fourth season finale is Wednesday June 8th.